Your Bruise
by superkappa
Summary: He thought having a child would change her. Calm her down. Maybe they could start a life together. And well…not be normal, but better people. But she didn’t want that. IABDVerse


Title: Your Bruise  
Author: superkappa  
Prompt: Human Behavior  
Pairing: Gabriel/Elle  
Rating/Warnings: PG-13  
Summary: He thought having a child would change her. Calm her down. Maybe they could start a life together. And well…not be normal, but better people. But she didn't want that. (IABDVerse)  
A/N: Written for sylelle_chall on Livejournal

It used to be that Gabriel could figure out everything. But then she came back into his life, like a whirlwind, and he could never figure her out. How one minute she was sweet and kind, and the next she was baiting him, trying to lead him back into the life of a murderer.

She was an angel and a devil and everything in between. His salvation and his damnation all at once.

He thought having a child would change her. Calm her down. Maybe they could start a life together. And well…not be normal, but better people. But she didn't want that. At first, she kept threatening to get rid of the child. She said they were too fucked up. They would damage a child to no end, just like their parents had done with them. But he had been able to talk her out of it, somehow. He convinced her to carry the child. That they shouldn't punish their child for the sins of their parents.

Elle was not one of those glowing pregnant women. She didn't read book after book about the pregnancy. It was Gabriel who did that. It was Gabriel who dragged her to Lamaze classes. She didn't want to know the sex of the baby, and refused to allow Gabriel to know either. She said if she knew it would just make it more real. And it was all too real for her taste to begin with.

When she gave birth to their son, she refused to take him into her arms. She refused to hold him. Gabriel couldn't understand how she seemed to hate something so perfect. When he asked her what he wanted to name it. She gave him an evil smirk and said Noah, the name of the man who had been his enemy more than almost anyone else. She was trying to hurt him, he knew, but if it helped, he allowed the name to stick.

She got antsy being home with the child all the time. She never wanted to hold him. She never breastfed him: not even once. She didn't want a bond. She said she had too many already. That she couldn't breathe. He was suffocating her. One night in bed, she woke him up in the middle of the night, whispering to him about how they should leave the child with Angela or Peter, and run off together. They could have adventures. They could do whatever they wanted. Gabriel could only stare at her in horror.

Gabriel had thought having a child would change for the better, but it only seemed to make her worse.

Six months went by, and she only grew more distant. She left at all hours, wouldn't come home until the early mornings. She never told him where she went. He wasn't sure he wanted to know, to be honest. She never wanted to have sex anymore. She became quiet, and withdrawn. When he asked her what she was thinking about, she never answered truthfully. She always just said nothing important, but the look in her eyes told a different story.

Finally, one morning he woke up and the other half of the bed was empty. He knew what happened even before he glanced over to her pillow, lifting up the note they had.

_Gabriel,_

_I can't pretend to be something I'm not._

_This life. It's not for me. You wanted a family. Well, you got one. Take care of Noah. Because I can't._

_Don't come after me._

_-Elle_

Gabriel read it over and over again, wondering how he hadn't seen it coming. How he hadn't seen the signs. He usually always put together things before everyone else, but this? This he had been unable to predict.

Years later, when Noah was four, he asked his father who his mother was. Gabriel just smiled and patted him on his head. He told him that his mother was a mystery. Noah smiled and clapped, accepting this answer rather easily before starting on his waffles. Gabriel was glad, because he wasn't sure what he was supposed to say about Elle.

He never was able to figure her out.


End file.
